1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to headphones and, in particular, a headphone unit having a rotatable ear cup.
2. Background
When playing live music, for instance in a night club, music disc jockeys (“DJ's) often use headphones to listen to music that the DJ plans to mix or blend with music that is currently being performed. During this transition of mixing the music, for example to match the tempo of the two songs, the DJ often has to remove one side of the headphones (i.e., remove one earpiece from the DJ's ear) in order to hear the blending of the music. This exposes the DJ's ear to the loud music coming from the house or loud speakers, which can be harmful to the DJ's ear. Also, when the earpiece is removed from DJ's ear, the headphones are prone to slip off the DJ's head, which may interrupt the DJ's performance.
Similarly, recording artists, when singing in a sound booth, often use headphones to hear the music they are accompanying. However, the intensity of the music emanating from the headphones often makes it difficult for the artist to hear their own pitch. Therefore, the artist may, similar to the DJ, remove one earpiece from their ear or, in the alternative, the sound engineer may reduce the volume of sound coming through the headphones to enable the artist to better hear themselves. However, when the earpiece is removed from artist's ear, sound from the earpiece may bleed into the recording artist's microphone or the headphones, again, are prone to slip off of the artist's head, which may interrupt their performance. In the alternative, when the headphone volume is reduced, it may affect the singer's “vibe” with the music and/or cause the artist to strain to hear the same.
Thus, there is a need for a set of headphones that both condition the amplitude of sound entering the user's ears, and allows the user to hear ambient sound without having to remove the earpiece from the their ears.